Flashcards for Go Tell It on the Mountain

Deborah

Deborah plays a crucial role in the "Gabriel's Prayer" section of James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, serving as Gabriel Grimes's first wife and the moral compass against which his hypocrisy is judged.

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Elisha

Elisha, the seventeen-year-old nephew of the pastor at the Temple of the Fire Baptized, stands out as one of the most spiritually dynamic characters in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.

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Elizabeth Grimes

Elizabeth Grimes is one of the three key adults whose "prayers" form the structural backbone of the novel, and her backstory—unfolding in "Elizabeth's Prayer" in Part Two—serves as the emotional and moral core of Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin.

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Esther

Esther plays a significant role in the flashback section of Gabriel Grimes's "Prayers of the Saints" in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.

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Florence

Florence is Gabriel Grimes's older sister and one of the three main adult voices in the "Prayers of the Saints" section.

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Gabriel Grimes

Gabriel Grimes is the stern and hypocritical head of the Grimes family in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), making him one of the novel's most morally complex characters.

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John Grimes

John Grimes is a fourteen-year-old boy at the heart of James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), serving as the novel's emotional and spiritual core.

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Richard

Richard is Elizabeth's ill-fated first love in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, appearing solely in flashbacks during "Elizabeth's Prayer," the second section of Part Two.

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Royal

Royal is the illegitimate son of Gabriel Grimes and Esther, a result of their brief, secret affair while Gabriel was still married to Deborah.

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Roy Grimes

Roy Grimes is Gabriel and Elizabeth's younger son in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.

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“Love is not consolation. It is light.”

This striking line comes from James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and is deeply tied to the spiritual and psychological aspects of the story's religious context.

Narrative/Baldwin (thematic voice) · Part Three: The Threshing Floor

“He had been in the Army, and he had been to France, and he had not come back the same man.”

This line appears in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), specifically within the book's flashback sections that delve into Gabriel Grimes's backstory or that of another male figure recounting his wartime experience.

Narrator · Part Two: The Prayers of the Saints

“God had not moved. He was still there, waiting.”

This line comes from James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), during a pivotal spiritual crisis faced by the protagonist, John Grimes, on the threshing floor of the Temple of the Fire Baptized.

Narrative voice (focalized through John Grimes) · Part Three: The Threshing Floor

“She had lived with her back against the wall for so long that she could not imagine what it meant to face the world.”

This line is from James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), likely from the "Prayers of the Saints" section, where Baldwin delves into the inner lives and histories of the adult characters.

Narrator (referring to Florence) · Prayers of the Saints – Florence's Prayer

“He was the son of a preacher man, and he had been raised in the church.”

This line appears near the beginning of James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and introduces John Grimes, a fourteen-year-old boy at the center of the story.

Narrator · Part One: The Seventh Day

“I'm going to be a great man someday.”

In James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), the young protagonist John Grimes makes this declaration while standing on a hill in Central Park on his fourteenth birthday, looking out over New York City.

John Grimes · Part One: The Seventh Day

“There was no love in Gabriel. There had never been any love in Gabriel.”

This harsh judgment pops up in James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), conveyed through a third-person omniscient narrator during the extended flashback sections called "The Prayers of the Saints."

Narrator (omniscient) · Part Two: The Prayers of the Saints

“John lay on the floor, the cold stone floor, and the darkness was all around him.”

This haunting line appears in James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), during the intense "threshing floor" sequence in Part Three ("The Threshing Floor").

Narrator (third-person) · Part Three: The Threshing Floor

“Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.”

The phrase "Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere" serves as the title of James Baldwin's 1953 semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain.

Epigraph / Spiritual Tradition · Epigraph / Part Three: The Threshing Floor

“The darkness of his sin was in the hardheartedness with which he had turned from them.”

This line is from James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a semi-autobiographical novel that delves into themes of race, religion, and family trauma in mid-twentieth-century Harlem.

Narrator (free indirect discourse reflecting Gabriel's consciousness) · Part Two: The Prayers of the Saints — Gabriel's Prayer

“And the Word was God.”

This phrase — taken directly from the Gospel of John (1:1) — shows up in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) as part of the way scripture is woven into the lives of its Black Pentecostal characters in Harlem.

Narrator / Scripture (John 1:1) · Part Three: The Threshing Floor

“He would not be like his father, or his father's fathers. He would have another life.”

This line comes from James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), seen through the eyes of John Grimes, a fourteen-year-old boy grappling with his future and his difficult relationship with his stepfather Gabriel.

John Grimes (narrative voice/free indirect discourse) · Part One: The Seventh Day

Fire

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, fire symbolizes both divine grace and destructive wrath.

The Church

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the Temple of the Fire Baptized embodies the complex nature of Black religious life in mid-twentieth-century Harlem, both oppressive and nurturing.

The Curse of Ham

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the Curse of Ham symbolizes the inherited shame tied to race and how scripture is misused to attack Black identity.

The Mountain

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the mountain serves as a complex symbol embodying spiritual struggle, racial oppression, and the painful divide between suffering and salvation.

The North and the South

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the North and the South serve as contrasting yet intimately connected symbols of the Black American experience.

The Threshing Floor

In James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the threshing floor of the Temple of the Fire Baptized symbolizes the harsh yet transformative boundary between sin and salvation.

Extended Metaphor

The mountain in the title serves as a powerful metaphor that runs throughout the novel.

Symbolism

Baldwin infuses specific objects and spaces with rich symbolic meaning.

Narrative Poem

Baldwin organizes the novel into three parts: 'The Seventh Day,' 'The Prayers of the Saints,' and 'The Threshing Floor,' each reflecting a unique time and psychological perspective.

Dramatic Monologue

The three sections titled 'Prayers of the Saints' act like extended dramatic monologues written in prose.

Allusion

The novel is rich with Biblical allusions that serve multiple purposes.

Imagery

Baldwin's sensory imagery stands out as some of the most precise in American fiction.

Irony

Structural irony runs throughout the novel.

Motif

The theme of sight and blindness weaves through every section.

Juxtaposition

Baldwin contrasts the sacred and the profane throughout the text, often within the same paragraph.

Pathetic Fallacy

The natural and urban environment often reflects inner emotions.

Prose Poem

Several passages in the novel, especially in 'The Threshing Floor,' shift from traditional narrative prose to something resembling prose poetry.

Anaphora

Anaphora, rooted in the rhetorical traditions of Black church sermons and the King James Bible, gives shape to Baldwin's most powerful passages.

exultation

A feeling of intense, triumphant joy and excitement that seems to rise up from inside a person, often without a clear reason.

noun · Chapter 1

headlong

With reckless, uncontrolled speed and force, rushing forward without caution or hesitation.

adverb · Chapter 1

threshing floor

In this Pentecostal church, the open area at the front where worshippers kneel, pray, and seek spiritual conversion; borrowed from the biblical image of separating grain from chaff.

noun · Chapter 2

resentment

A bitter, long-held feeling of anger toward someone because of unfair treatment or favoritism that has never been addressed or forgiven.

noun · Chapter 2

preference

The act of favoring one person over another, giving them more love, attention, or advantage than others receive.

noun · Chapter 2

sharecropper

A poor farmer, often Black in the post-Civil War South, who worked land owned by someone else and paid rent by giving the landowner a share of the crops harvested.

noun · Chapter 2

formerly enslaved

Describes a person who had previously been held as a slave and was later freed, carrying the lasting trauma and memory of that bondage.

phrase · Chapter 2

handbag

A small bag carried by a woman, used to hold personal items; here it serves as a private hiding place for a damaging letter kept secret for years.

noun · Chapter 2

Army of the Lord

A phrase used by Pentecostal believers to describe the community of saved, faithful Christians seen as soldiers fighting for God against sin and the devil.

phrase · Chapter 3

desperately wicked

Deeply and hopelessly corrupt or sinful at its core; drawn from biblical language to describe human nature as fundamentally prone to wrongdoing.

phrase · Chapter 3

womanizing

Habitually pursuing and having sexual relationships with many women, behaving in a way that is considered irresponsible and morally wrong.

verb · Chapter 3

illegitimate

Born to parents who were not married to each other; in this period the word carried strong social shame and legal disadvantage for both mother and child.

adjective · Chapter 3

piety

Devoted religious faith and practice shown through prayer, worship, and moral behavior; here it is an outward performance that conceals private sin.

noun · Chapter 3

saintly

Extremely holy, morally pure, and devoted to God in a way that sets a person apart from ordinary sinners.

adjective · Chapter 3

introspective

Focused on examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and past experiences deeply and honestly from the inside.

adjective · Chapter 4

confess

To formally admit to a crime or wrongdoing, especially under pressure from authorities; here done through beatings rather than free choice.

verb · Chapter 4

tarry service

A Pentecostal prayer meeting in which believers stay and wait — 'tarry' — before God, seeking the Holy Spirit and spiritual conversion, sometimes for hours.

phrase · Chapter 5

conversion

The moment when a person is believed to turn from sin and be spiritually reborn, accepting God and entering the community of the saved; a central event in Pentecostal worship.

noun · Chapter 5

salvation

In this religious context, being rescued from sin and damnation by God's grace, securing one's soul for eternal life; the goal every believer at the church seeks.

noun · Chapter 5

visionary

Involving intense, dream-like images or revelations experienced during a spiritual state, as if seeing beyond the ordinary physical world.

adjective · Chapter 5

deacon

A lay officer in a Protestant church who assists the minister, leads worship, and is expected to model upright Christian behavior in the community.

noun · Chapter 1

Pentecostal

Relating to a branch of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes direct personal experience of the Holy Spirit, expressed through fervent prayer, speaking in tongues, and emotional worship.

adjective · Chapter 1

Jim Crow

The system of racial segregation laws and customs enforced in the American South after Reconstruction, designed to keep Black Americans politically, economically, and socially subordinate to white people.

noun · Chapter 2

hypocrisy

The practice of claiming to hold moral or religious beliefs while secretly behaving in ways that contradict them; the gap between public virtue and private sin.

noun · Chapter 2

domineer

To control others through intimidation, force of will, or authority, allowing little room for disagreement or independence.

verb · Chapter 1